About the author- litigation lawyer in telecoms, taxation, criminal, labor, appellate, family law and corporate; a radio broadcaster, speaker, author a husband, a father, advocate for consumers, for justice www.angkapatiran.org and a sinner who wants to
be a saint. hilman1108@yahoo.com
Do join the digital filipino club, log on to www.digitalfilipino.com
Yesterday, Janet Toral the convenor of digital filipino invited me to attend this 7th anniversary of Digital Filipino.
Janet asked me to write what 10 things I attribute to internet use.
I joined the internet wagon in 1995. Eventually mail station of Albert Velasco gave me
my email address and a free connection to the internet in 1997. I was hired to act as legal counsel then for the newly organized Philippine Internet Service Organization (PISO) to oppose mandatory phone metering for the landlines. At that time Digitel was already metered when the facility was purchased by the Gokongwei group. PLDT wanted to follow suit then the others even Bayantel where I came from as the AVP for legal. Initially we failed as the NTC under Commissioner S. Kintanar allowed PLDT the license while the oppositor was still to present evidence/ Eventually when President Erap Estrada got elected, we brought the issue before the DOTC headed by Secretary Jun Rivera who recommended our request to stop mandatory phone metering. Imagine if this metering was approved we will not have e-commerce and rampant internet use as today. We argued the experience in Spain and other states that had metered and practically killed e-commerce.
Now with the packet switches technology eventually even cellphone use will not be metered
according PLDT and Smart group. Great.
I was able to have our radio show build its own website and hosted by nsclub.net. listen to 104.3 fm monday to friday from 6 to 8 am . this is broadcasters bureau talk show
for eleven years.
When I ran for Congress nsclub.net hosted my Congressional website.
More than a year ago I have built my own website in www.adrian.i.ph
I meet clients and new readers online. Yesterdays one internet day was a reunion with Manny Amador who is in Cebu. I met Maoui Arroyo a funny intelligent young lady who is into biotechnology she has her Manilenya blog.
Bomacorporation.com Quinnie Ann, and the Yes payments with Ms Chua, Epldts products
Great day.
How You Made Money
A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.
The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, "Well, son, it
was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last
nickel.
"I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing
the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.
"The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent
the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I
continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated
a fortune of $1.37."
"And that’s how you built an empire?" the boy asked.
"Heavens, no!" the man replied. "Then my wife’s father died and left
us two million dollars."
IMPORTANT
A stock clerk was sent to clean up a storeroom in Maui , Hawaii .
When he got back, he was complaining that the storeroom was really filthy and that he had noticed dried mouse or rat droppings in some areas.
A couple of days later, he started to feel like he was coming down with a stomach flu, complained of sore joints and headaches, and began to vomit.
He went to bed and never really got up again. Within two days he was severely ill and weak. His blood sugar count was down to 66, and his face and eyeballs were yellow. He was rushed to the emergency at Pali-Momi, where he was diagnosed to be suffering from massive organ failure. He died shortly before midnight.
No one would have made the connection between his job and his death,had it not been for a doctor who specifically asked if he had been in a warehouse or exposed to dried rat or mouse droppings at any time. They said there is a virus (much like the Hanta virus) that lives in dried rat and mouse droppings.
Once dried, these droppings are like dust and can easily be breathed in or ingested if a person does not wear protective gear or fails to wash face and hands thoroughly .
An autopsy was performed on the clerk to verify the doctor’s suspicions.
This is why it is extremely important to ALWAYS carefully rinse off the tops of canned sodas or foods, and to wipe off pasta packaging, cereal boxes, and so on.
Almost everything you buy in a supermarket was stored in a warehouse at one time or another, and stores themselves often have rodents.
Most of us remember to wash vegetables and fruits but never think of boxes and cans.
The ugly truth is, even the most modern, upper-class, super store has rats and mice. And their warehouse most assuredly does!
Whenever you buy any canned soft drink, please make sure that you wash the top with running water and soap or, if that is not available, drink with a straw.
The investigation of soda cans by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta discovered that the tops of soda cans can be encrusted with dried rat’s urine, which is so toxic it can be lethal. Canned drinks and other foodstuffs are stored in warehouses and containers that are usually infested with Rodents, and then they get transported to retail outlets without being properly cleaned
PHILIPPINE PROTESTERS PIONEER STRATEGIC USE OF SMS
By Mary Jordan
The Washington Post
Raymond Palatino’s cell phone pinged loudly, and a text message lit up the display: “Other students are already marching. Where are you?”
Palatino and hundreds of others—nearly all carrying cell phones—were on their way to Manila’s gated presidential palace for a protest rally. Palatino and what people here call a “text brigade” were still a couple of miles away, about to board buses in the steamy midday heat.
“No, not ready,” he typed, holding his phone in both hands, his thumbs flying across the buttons. “We’re 30 minutes away.”
In a string of unsolved murders in recent months, trade union leaders, government critics, students, journalists and others have been killed. Students had begun clamoring for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to do something.
Once they might have called a demonstration by printing fliers. Now, they do it by mass texting. Palatino had spent days getting the word out, banging out text after text on the keypad of his little Nokia phone.
“WEAR RED. BRING BANNERS.” The messages—faster and cheaper than phone calls—went to thousands of young people, telling them to gather near Morayta Street.
“I didn’t talk to anyone,” said Palatino, 26, a university graduate who has a contagious smile and aspires to be a teacher. “All the organizing is done through texting. It’s affordable and instant.”
Change the world
Cell phones and text messaging are changing the way political mobilizations are conducted around the world. From Manila to Riyadh and Kathmandu protests once publicized on coffeehouse bulletin boards are now organized entirely through text-messaging networks that can reach vast numbers of people in a matter of minutes.
The technology is also changing the organization and dynamics of protests, allowing leaders to control, virtually minute-by-minute, the movements of demonstrators, like military generals in the field. Using texts that communicate orders instantly, organizers can call for advances or retreats of waves of protesters.
This tool has changed the balance of political power in places where governments have a history of outmuscling dissent. In April, Nepal’s King Gyanendra ordered authorities to cut cell-phone service after protesters against his absolute rule used text messages to help assemble street protests by tens of thousands of democracy advocates.
The Philippines, widely called the text-messaging center of the world, has led the way. When President Joseph Estrada was forced from office in 2001, he bitterly complained that the popular uprising against him was a “coup de text.”
This country of 85 million people has only 2 million Internet users and 3 million people with land-line telephones. But there are more than 30 million cell-phone subscribers here, according to government statistics, more than double the figure in 2002.
Initially, mobile-phone companies offered free texting. Today, a text message still costs just 2 cents, a fraction of a call. A typical Filipino mobile-phone user sends about eight texts a day, spending far more time texting than talking.
Cell-phone database
Every major Philippine political party and nonprofit group has a database of its supporters’ cell-phone numbers. Many use computers to automatically generate mass text mailings to those phones with news about issues or rallies or upcoming votes.
“When Estrada was ousted, we realized the power of texting,” said Palatino, the slight, well-spoken president of a national youth party. “Since then we have never stopped using it to advance our causes.”
At 1:30 p.m. on a recent day, Palatino and three students lingered near the doughnut case in the 7-Eleven on a congested corner of Morayta Street. They stood in the air-conditioned cool, cell phones in hand, waiting for a text.
Outside in the sweltering sunshine, amid street kiosks selling goods from iced coconut drinks to 1973 National Geographic magazines, other young people stood around, trying to blend in and avoid the notice of a few police officers who walked up and down, watching. Some of the students carried rolled-up banners that said “Stop the Killings.” Each clutched a cell phone.
They knew police had been ordered to disperse unauthorized crowds near the presidential palace and would not hesitate to use wooden batons and water cannons to do it. So organizers wanted to make sure that everyone converged at the same time to make the rally harder to break up.
Soon Palatino’s phone was alive with a flurry of texts from coordinators and marchers anxious to start.
One asked: “Are the media here?”
About a dozen TV cameramen and newspaper photographers gathered outside. They, too, had been summoned by text.
At 1:45, Palatino’s phone pinged again, this time with the message: “ASSEMBLE RIGHT NOW!”
A smile crossed his face. With a few more taps of his thumbs, he forwarded the command down the text brigade ranks. He sent it to those on his phone list, and each who received it did the same. In seconds, about 1,000 students were in the street, stopping traffic and sending cars and bicycle taxis scattering.
Two students quickly hooked up a public address system to the battery of a vehicle. One by one, leaders climbed on top of it to fire up the crowd. Palatino demanded that President Arroyo do more to end the killings and allocate more money for universities.
“Books, not bullets!” he shouted.
The all-at-once strategy worked: The police were caught off guard. Only a few officers were on the scene, and they quickly pulled out their own cell phones to make urgent voice calls. Within minutes, scores more officers arrived.
They lined up to block the demonstrators. Many wore helmets and carried riot shields. A red firetruck arrived at the intersection. It stopped, its water cannon pointed at the crowd.
Palatino looked at the growing confrontation, worry creeping across his face for the first time. “It will be a success if we can stay long enough to get our message out,” he said.
As the speeches continued, a police commander negotiated with a female protest leader.
At 2:38, she stepped away and composed a text, which she sent to Palatino and eight other organizers. In a mixture of Tagalog and English, the country’s two official languages—a popular combination known as Taglish—she called for a meeting to plan their next move.
They huddled in the middle of the street like a football team. It started to rain.
Making the news
The protest was a success, the leaders agreed. It had lasted an hour already and surely would make the evening news. They worried about the police, but decided to take their chances and keep going. They agreed to press on toward Mendiola Street, historically a popular protest site within sight of the presidential compound.
They knew they couldn’t break through the police lines. So they decided to take a different route, Bustillos Street, which the police might not expect.
Then came the next mass text command. “BUSTILLOS!”
At first, the police looked pleased: The students were retreating. Then, they realized the protesters were only changing course. Officers hustled into new positions and cut off the crowd closer to the palace.
At 3:30, violence broke out. The students retreated, police running after them, hitting them across the back, head and arms with batons. Thwack! Thwack!
Caught up in the melee, ducking from the swinging batons, Palatino heard his phone ping loudly.
“GET OUT OF THERE. You are in a dangerous place,” warned the text, from a friend who could see that Palatino was about to be pinned between the crowd and a wall.
An officer grabbed Palatino.
“ID! ID! Now!” the red-faced officer demanded.
A small group of officers closed in around Palatino, whose eyes were suddenly wide with terror.
Students who saw it quickly typed a text alert to others, using Palatino’s nickname: “Mong is being arrested.”
But as suddenly as they had grabbed him, the police let him go and ran off to help another group of officers who were beating a group of students.
Relieved but shaken, Palatino walked quickly toward a Shakey’s Pizza on España Boulevard, where earlier texts had instructed everyone to meet once the protest ended. As he walked, his phone pinged loudly with text after text.
Like other leaders, Palatino was responsible for making sure everyone in his group was safe and accounted for.
Texts of “WHERE ARE YOU?” raced through the crowd.
After an hour, 10 people out of the 1,000 had not replied. So organizers dispatched people to police stations and hospitals to check for the missing.
An hour later, students started filtering home in time for the 6:30 news, which was filled with graphic scenes of police officers beating the young protesters.
Just after 7 p.m., Palatino received a text with the final tally: 34 students injured, eight seriously. Ten people detained, then released.
“Before, we had no choice but to keep quiet and listen to the President,” Palatino said, still holding his tiny phone. “This is a development for democracy.”
student debt burden to hit $19bn by 2008
September 13, 2006 07:29am
AUSTRALIAN university students are expected to owe the nation nearly $19 billion by 2008, or an average of $10,500 for every graduate under HECS.
Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said Australia was adopting an American-style education system which discouraged doctors, scientists and engineers.
"The average HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) fee paid by Australian students has doubled under the Howard Government, discouraging prospective students from taking the university place they have earned," Ms Macklin said.
"Under the Howard Government young people are graduating from university with ever-increasing levels of debt, making it much harder for them to buy a home, start a family and get ahead."
Education Minister Julie Bishop said the HECS scheme was introduced by Labor.
"For every $1 a student contributes to their education, the Australian Government contributes $3," Ms Bishop said.
"We have a record number of students at our universities - almost 1 million students - which is an increase of almost 50 per cent since 1996.
"About 96 per cent of those students are in a government-subsidised place."
Since 1989 more than 1.9 million students have accessed higher education through Australian Government-funded loans.
There are no upfront fees and students begin to repay the debt only when their income exceeds $38,149.
The average repayment time for debts is just over seven years.
In Queensland, school students starting Year 11 next year will be required to complete at least six months of maths.
The change will be part of the switch from the present Senior Certificate to the Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) to be issued for the first time at the end of 2008.
Education Queensland’s assistant director-general (curriculum) Lesley Englert, confirmed the new certificate would contain information on literacy and numeracy, requiring students to take at least six months of maths study.
Maths is not now a compulsory senior subject in Queensland, unlike English.
Education Minister Rod Welford told the estimates committee that to be awarded a QCE, a student would have to achieve standards in academic subjects or VET (vocational education and training qualifications).
He said the system was also flexible, allowing a student to return to complete their studies after a period in the workforce.
Hefty fees … Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin says Australia is adopting an American-style education system discouraging potential doctors, scientists and engineers from attending uni / File
|
DexteR, did you do an Arts degree? LOL
Posted by: Anna 1:41pm today
I had never did a degree becasue I had to work to look after my family at an early age. I am 36 years now and earn close to $80,000 dollars a year. My advice to young people is go get a job and experience learning on the job from your colleagues, supervisors and anyone else. This is the best education I ever had.
Posted by: Matthew McCormic 1:07pm today
what these people need to realise is that life isn’t free. I only wish i had taken the opportunity to further my education for $10,500 @ 3% interest. Wish i was paying 3% interest on all my loans. No doubt most of them when they leave uni and get their higher paid jobs they will buy a car for more than what they paid for uni at more than 4 times the interest rate, but you won’t hear them complain about that.
Posted by: Shaun Wilkinson 12:57pm today
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Get in touch with mvision88@yahoo.com to avail of the confluent learning a Filipino designed way to learn to think out of the box.
You and I have several aspects, the spiritual, the emotional, the physical, the mental and the other sixth sense level. Have we maximized our learning and tried new fields.
how do we handle stress and outside stimuli?
What is our life purpose?
Why are we here.
Perhaps confluent learning has a way of imparting options of response and learning.
Confluent learning shows that the confluence of different realities helps us understand
where we are.
Incest / Sexual Abuse of Children"
By: Patricia D. McClendon, MSSW candidate
Date: November 23, 1991
"If you have been sexually abused, you are not alone. One out of three girls, and one out of seven boys, are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of eighteen." (Bass and Davis, 1988, p. 20) The traditional definition of incest is sexual intercourse between blood relatives: it is illegal to marry because of such a close relationship.
There is now an evolving definition of incest that takes into consideration the betrayal of trust and the power imbalance in these one-sided relationships. One such definition is: "the imposition of sexually inappropriate acts, or acts with sexual overtones … by one or more persons who derive authority through ongoing emotional bonding with that child." (Blume, 1990, p. 4) This definition expands the traditional definition of incest to include sexual abuse by anyone who has authority or power over the child. This definition of incest includes as perpetrators: immediate/extended family members, babysitters, school teachers, scout masters, priests/ministers, etc. "Incest between an adult and a related child or adolescent is now recognized as the most prevalent form of child sexual abuse and as one with great potential for damage to the child". (Courtois, 1988, p. 12)
With the increase in the divorce rates, more children are at greater risk than ever. Women, in their attempts to find a mate, may unwittingly be putting their children at greater risk for sexual abuse from the men they date. If the mother remarries, according to a survey done by Russell, the "stepdaughters are over eight times more at risk of sexual abuse by the stepfathers who reared them than are daughters reared by their biological fathers." (Russell, 1986, p. 103) "As some researchers have begun to suspect, it may be the case that a growing number of stepfathers are really ’smart pedophiles’, men who marry divorced or single women with families as a way of getting close to children." (Crewdson, 1988, p. 31)
In the Finkelhor study, "Boys’ experiences are somewhat different from girls’. They are primarily homosexual (experiences), and they less often involve family members. However, boys do seem to be victims of force and coercion just as often as girls. Both girls and boys report that in over half the incidents some form of coercion was used." (Finkelhor, 1979, p. 143)
According to Diane Russell (The Secret Trauma) and David Finkelhor (Child Sexual Abuse) 95% of the perpetrators of girls are men and 80% of the perpetrators of boys are men. (Bass and Davis, 1988, p. 96) This may be the major reason why talking about incest is a bigger taboo than incest itself! Who hold the power in our society? Men. The majority of judges, police, prosecutors and others responsible for protection and enforcement are men.
Freud, in 1896, was the first to recognize the connection between adult survivors’ mental health problems and their past histories of child sexual abuse, thus explaining the problem of hysteria. This led to his seduction theory. After much uproar by his contemporaries (many of whom were implicated as perpetrators), Freud denounced the seduction theory and replaced it with the oedipal theory. The oedipal theory viewed incestuous accounts by victims as mere sexual fantasies. (Russell, 1986, p. 4-6)
The largest number of incest cases from the population at large comes from the Kinsey studies in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Even though the women in his studies said that their experiences of childhood sexual abuse was traumatic, "Kinsey cavalierly belittled these reports. He hastened to assure the public that children should not be upset by these experiences. If they were, this was the fault not of the sexual aggressor, but the prudish parents and teachers who caused the child to become ‘hysterical’ … By contrast, this group (the Kinsey group) demonstrated a keen sensitivity toward the adult offender … Ignoring issues of dominance and power, they took a position that amounted to little more than advocacy of greater sexual license for men … The public, in the judgement of these men, was not ready to hear about incest." (Herman, 1981, p. 16-18)
In the 1970s, the incest issue was once again brought forth, this time by women themselves. It was during the explosion of the women’s liberation movement that subjects like rape, wife- battering, and sexual abuse of children were brought to the front. In 1979, Diana Russell interviewed "more than nine hundred randomly chosen San Francisco women about their childhood sexual experiences … she found that 38% of those questioned … had been sexually abused by an adult relative, acquaintance, or stranger before reaching the age of eighteen." (Crewdson, 1988, p. 25) There were some flaws to her methodology but not enough to dismiss her study as worthless. Bud Lewis of the Los Angeles Times conducted a poll in July, 1985 to determine the extent of sexual abuse. He sampled 2,627 men and women from every state in the union. The results showed that "27% of the women and 16% of the men, said they had been sexually abused as children … applied to the current population, it meant that nearly thirty-eight million adults had been sexually abused as children." (Crewdson, 1988, p. 27-28)
"Approximately 40% of all victims/survivors suffer aftereffects serious enough to require therapy in adulthood. (Browne and Finkelhor, 1986)." (Courtois, 1988, p.6) Some of the aftereffects can include: inability to trust (which effects the therapeutic relationship), fear of intimacy, depression, suicidal ideation and other self-destructive behaviors, and low self-esteem, guilt, anger, isolation and alienation from others, drug and alcohol dependency, and eating disorders.
"Briere questions the use of psychiatric labels (for victims of sexual abuse). He suggests instead that the psychological disturbances experienced by survivors of sexual abuse be considered post-sexual-abuse trauma. This term refers to symptomatic behaviors that were initially adaptive, but that over time have become `contextually inappropriate components of the victim’s adult personality’." (Gil, 1988, p. 28) This view gets away from stigmatizing and blaming the victim. The person responsible for inflicting the trauma is to blame - the perpetrator. Children are never responsible for their sexual abuse, adults are the ones responsible. At the turn of the century, Freud labeled victims of sexual abuse (predominately women) "Hysteric". For the next 70 to 80 years society has labeled these victims as "mentally ill". It is now understood that survivors of sexual abuse are actually suffering from the aftereffects of the trauma.
Traditionally, sexual abuse of children was considered either incest or pedophilia. Now, it is viewed as being on a continuum. While some incestuous men have sex only with their own children, according to one study (Abel, 1983), "at least 44%, abuse children outside the home during the time they are having sexual contact with their own children," and other men have sex with children they aren’t related to. Characteristics that offenders have in common are: "dependent, inadequate individuals with early family histories characterized by conflict, disruption, abandonment, abuse and exploitation." (Encyclopedia of Social Work, 1987, p. 256) Not all offenders are men. While some offenders were sexually abused as children, they still need to be held accountable for their abuse of children and receive sex offender treatment. Unfortunately, court action may be the only way to assure offenders’ participation in treatment programs.
The social work profession is dedicated to the values of human dignity, personal autonomy, self-realization and self- determination. These are the very areas that victims are the most severely damaged.
In order to be effective in identifying and treating victims of child sexual abuse, the social worker needs to be knowledgeable about the characteristics, aftereffects, and treatment strategies relevant to this issue. Intervention activities should ideally include the victim, the "silent partner", and the perpetrator. Intervention activities may include referral to appropriate individual and/or family counseling services, securing emergency shelter if necessary, referral to medical and legal services, and advocacy for clients. Because it is a very complex issue, the social worker needs to be able to coordinate an array of community services.
In the area of prevention, the social worker can provide education to the community and work with citizens groups for legislation to address child sexual abuse. Educating the child to say "no!" is not enough. "Finally, the responsibility we all bear to protect the defenseless falls on the shoulders of the recovering incest survivor as well. She (he) must face the reality that she (he) holds information whose withholding keeps others at risk. No perpetrator stops on his (her) own. In breaking the secret, she (he) has finally, the power to break the chain." (Blume, 1990, p. 72-73)
Bibliography
Bass, Ellen and Laura Davis. 1988. The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, NY
Blume, E. Sue. 1990. Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY
Courtois, Christine A. 1988. Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY
Crewdson, John. 1988. By Silence Betrayed: Sexual Abuse of Children in America. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, NY
Finkelhor, David. 1979. Sexually Victimized Children. The Free Press - a division of Macmillan
